


Magnets

by DumbScribbles



Category: DreamSMP, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Afterlife, Complicated Relationships, DreamSMP - Freeform, Enemies to Lovers, Fluff and Angst, Ghost Jschlatt (Video Blogging RPF), Ghost Wilbur Soot, Ghosts, Hybrid Jschlatt (Video Blogging RPF), Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Scars, Smoking, Wilbur Soot-centric, well technically it was friends to lovers to enemies to lovers but that first half is in the past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-17 03:34:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29465091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DumbScribbles/pseuds/DumbScribbles
Summary: Wilbur's dead. Even worse, he's sharing his afterlife, purgatory, or whatever the hell it is with Schlatt of all people. But they've got a lot more history than most people know about.
Relationships: Jschlatt/Wilbur Soot
Comments: 8
Kudos: 157





	Magnets

**Author's Note:**

> Been thinking about this idea ever since ghost Alivebur confirmed that he and Schlatt had indeed been sharing an afterlife.  
> These are their DSMP characters, not the real people.  
> TW - past self harm + self harm scars, alcoholism, smoking

"I cannot _fucking_ stand you!"

Words echoing out into the chilly air, Wilbur angrily stomped off into the thick forest. He left the small clearing that he had been occupying, leaving behind a ram hybrid who possessed intolerable amounts of smugness. He tried to ignore Schlatt's taunting voice, but he still heard him call out, "Yeah, yeah, see you later!" as the Brit got away as quickly as he possibly could.

Schlatt and Wilbur had died about a month ago, on the very same day. On the fateful day of the war, Manberg versus Pogtopia. God, it sounded so stupid if you put even a shred of thought into it.

Everyone knew of the pair's dreadful ends; Schlatt had a heart attack, and Wilbur had gotten his own father to murder him after he blew up the nation. Regardless of people's relations to them both, their deaths left a hole on the SMP bigger than the crater that was once L'manberg.

Wilbur had woken up in this dull pine forest, the sky forever cloudy and the breeze always just slightly too cold. It felt so real, he might've assumed he was alive if he hadn't retained his memories. Wilbur had examined himself, seeming to be in the exact same condition he had been in moments before his demise. But there was always this feeling in his gut that there was something missing, something deep inside that he just couldn't describe. In the time he had spent here, he still hadn't been able to figure out what it was.

The forest that Wilbur assumed was some kind of afterlife hadn't shown off any ill intentions, that was, until a certain ram hybrid appeared in his vision, looking as sleezy as usual.

Wilbur found himself stuck in between two options: run out into the woods and slowly lose his mind, or stick around with Schlatt and slowly lose his mind.

Right now, Wilbur was once again opting for that first option. From day one, him and Schlatt had completely and totally failed to get along. They avoided talking to each other when they could, but the boredom was too much. But of course, nearly every time they spoke, it ended in some kind of hostile argument or shouting match. Wilbur was usually the one to cut it off, going off into the woods and shooting his last insults as Schlatt gave his faux farewells. He knew, they both knew, that the result would always end up the same. They fight, Wilbur leaves, and eventually returns.

It was basically a rehearsed routine at this point.

As Wilbur got his sweet minutes of alone time before inevitably ending up back where he had come from (he was never sure if it was his subconscious leading him back or whatever reality-bending shit this purgatory forest was), he actually took some time to think about Schlatt for once.

Not Schlatt, president of Manburg, but rather Schlatt, his friend.

Because yes, a not-so-long time ago, Schlatt and Wilbur had been close friends. Well, maybe friends wasn't exactly the right term. Wilbur shivered, but heat began to tingle on his skin.

To his knowledge, Wilbur was pretty sure no one had known about their history other than his family members. None of them had mentioned anything about it to the other SMP members, but it wasn't really their story to tell anyway. It was Schlatt and Wilbur's, and theirs alone.

From the moment they had met, something was created between them. A force, a pull. Like a magnetic charge.

Ridiculous adventures that had them barely escaping with their lives. Sitting in the kitchen at two in the morning making hot pockets. Contently laying in bed together, limbs intertwined.

They were teenagers. Driven by emotion and desire and the adrenaline of life, but they _needed_ each other. It was kind of pathetic looking back on it, but Wilbur remembered how emotionally dependent he had been on the other boy. And he was the older one, for fuck's sake.

But life got busy like it does. Both of them got caught up in their own business. They had to split up. So they grew apart. They changed. There was no proper break up, or really even a proper goodbye. But it seemed like they had both understood: it was done now.

Wilbur grew stronger. He learned from his father and older brother, how to hold his own in the world. He got bolder, he gained confidence, he became better. That didn't mean he never relapsed. There were nights when he was alone, nights when the only way he could stabilize himself was remarking those dreadful dripping lines into his wrists. But he was getting better, little by little. Even without Schlatt by his side.

Wilbur met other people. The one his mind wandered back to the most was a woman named Sally. She had truly been a beautiful creature, inside and out. She had loved Wilbur, and he had loved her back. He always would, but Wilbur could tell when to let go.

The first day Wilbur had set foot on the DreamSMP was the first day he had seen Schlatt in a long time. At first, he had seemed to be the same as he had always been, the smug, cheeky bastard who never failed to get under Wilbur's skin in a strangely good way. Their reunion was short lived, but another came quickly after, and that was when Schlatt showed off how he had changed.

Ambition. Alcohol. A little bit of evil intent.

One disaster led to the next, and now they were here. Dead, together. Hating each other for the rest of time.

Lost in his thoughts, Wilbur almost did a double take as he realized he was already back at the familiar clearing he had spent the past month in. Schlatt was leaning against a nearby tree, a box of cigarettes in one hand and a singular one already lit in his other. As Wilbur approached defeatedly, Schlatt raised the cig held between two fingers and took in a nice inhale of smoke.

"Back already, Loverboy," The ram hybrid said, a statement rather than a question. He held out the box of cigarettes and Wilbur took one. The Brit pulled his own lighter out of one of his trench coat pockets and it lit, breathing in the unhealthy fumes.

Wilbur leaned against the same tree, not directly next to the other man but right where he could see him out of the corner of his eye, just around the bend of the tree trunk. They stood in silence for a while, smoking and accepting each other's company. This was the other mood that they could maintain. Only blatant hostility or sort of comfortable silence. After a few nice minutes of nothing, Wilbur finally decided to speak.

"Do you remember our Water Rising adventure?"

Wilbur saw Schlatt's arm freeze as he was lowering his hand from taking another puff. After a few moments, he finished dropping his arm and turned his head away slightly.

"Course I do," he muttered, and Wilbur was struck by the fondness in his voice. He realized how much older and more mature Schlatt sounded since that time in their lives, and it tugged at Wilbur's heart. He was a completely different guy now, but he was still the same person that Wilbur did everything with all those years ago.

"I remember all of it, Wilbur. I know you do too."

For a moment, Wilbur was lost for words. It was hard to read Schlatt's tone but regardless, the words created a warm, needy feeling in his chest. Like longing. Maybe it had been there all along, and Wilbur had only been trying to hide from it.

"I missed you," were the words that Wilbur recklessly let slip out of his mouth. Despite the cool climate, he began to feel warm, almost uncomfortably so. The Brit was fixated on the other man's presence, waiting for a reaction. He felt a bit guilty.

"And you think I didn't?" Schlatt eventually grunted, sounding agitated. His posture had slumped over slightly, and his cigarette was now crushed under his shoe in the grass.

"I… I don't know…" Wilbur mumbled. A familiar anxiety was beginning to well in his gut, and a small snippet of a memory was invading his head space. A completely mundane, domestic moment, of Schlatt's fingers running through his hair as they lay in bed together.

And then in an instant, Schlatt was standing in front of him, just slightly shorter than the Brit, but the red hue of his sharp eyes and the gnarled horns that curled down to frame his face and ears made him intimidating enough. He stood close enough to be invading Wilbur's personal space, and the taller subconsciously held his breath. He cigarette in his hand dropped into the withering grass by his feet.

Cautiously, Schlatt brought a hand up and brushed a few curls from Wilbur's eyes. His touches were so light but Wilbur still felt him, and it brought out a feeling in yearning that Wilbur had forgotten about. Suddenly desperate, he reached out and gripped his hands onto Schlatt's shoulders. He didn't push, but he didn't pull either. He just held onto that feeling of connection between them, too scared to move.

Schlatt's hand slipped away from Wilbur's face, while his other reached up to one of Wilbur's arms. The ram hybrid began to push back a bit of his sleeve. Wilbur hardly reacted, simply maintaining eye contact with Schlatt, so he proceeded to pull back more of the fabric, up to Wilbur's elbow.

Calloused fingers traced over the many tiny marks that littered Wilbur's arm. There was a solemn look on his face, and Wilbur remembered more. A messy night, the first night he had been caught in his unhealthy coping ritual. He had expected some sort of yelling or angry outburst, but Schlatt had just held him, unbothered by the blood staining his shirt and the tears that dampened his shoulder. That had been the moment when Wilbur realised that the real pain in life wasn't the pain that you felt, but rather the pain that you caused others. The memory had grown fuzzy towards the end, but Wilbur was sure he remembered seeing tears in Schlatt's eyes as he bandaged up Wilbur's arms.

Loosely, Schlatt tugged the fabric of Wilbur's sleeve back down and dropped his hands down to his sides. Wilbur let go of the shorter man's shoulders, letting his hands drag down a bit of Schlatt's suit before returning them to his sides as well. Neither of them moved, or blinked, or breathed. The strange wriggling ball of emotions in Wilbur's chest was making him so tense that he thought he might just burst, when suddenly Schlatt leaned over and whispered into his ear.

"If you really missed me, fuckin' prove it."

In one messy frantic movement, Wilbur's hands reached up to Schlatt's head and around his neck, fingers running through his messy hair and sensually rubbing his horns while Wilbur himself was pushed against the tree by Schlatt's chest, the ram hybrid's hands gripping themselves firmly above the other's hips. And in that moment, their lips collided, and Wilbur was filled with a nostalgic feeling that reignited his soul.

Both their lips were chapped from the cold weather, but Wilbur instantly opened his mouth and was rewarded with the warmth of another tongue against his. Schlatt tasted different now, mostly smoke and cheap booze, but there was still something that hadn't changed, and it only pulled Wilbur deeper into the feelings he was drowning in. Schlatt's hands had slipped under his coat and the sides of his shirt, and Wilbur moaned into the kiss as he felt cold hands trace up and down his skin.

It was all coming back in a flooding mess, the memories they had pretended didn't exist, the emotions that no one else could replicate, the things only they could give to each other. He felt so safe and welcomed in Schlatt's arms. Schlatt always made Wilbur feel like he had a purpose, and that was something he definitely didn't take for granted.

Just as Wilbur thought he might pass out, they broke the kiss, bodies still pressed up against each other. He looked at Schlatt though half lidded eyes, and he felt like he was under a spell, like he was a teenager again.

"Just like old times, huh?" Schlatt sighed with a small chuckle. Wilbur couldn't help the smile that tugged at his lips. Slowly, Wilbur's legs bent underneath him, and Schlatt moved back slightly, unpinning the taller man to let him sink down to the base of the tree. The ram hybrid followed, kneeling down in front of him.

"Old times? Feels like fucking yesterday," Wilbur sighed, the warmth inside of him negating the cold breeze that blew through the trees. "But god, I forgot how good it was."

Schlatt grinned. "Imagine, fuckin' arguing like bitches for the past month when we coulda been making out. Woulda made this afterlife hell a little less boring."

"Well, sorry for still being kind of angry about the whole 'exiling me from my own country' thing."

"C'mon Wil…" Schlatt let his head hang for a moment before glancing back up, a more serious look in his eyes. "Okay, listen, that whole thing, the war and shit… I honestly have no idea what I was doing, or why I was even on that stupid SMP. I just… you know I never _really_ hated you or anything like that, right?" Wilbur wasn't sure how to respond, but he saw his growing silence slowly create an anxious look on Schlatt's face, who slightly leaned away before speaking again.

"I… The things I did were shitty, alright? I knew I was doing bad things, I just couldn't… I couldn't stop." Schlatt gave Wilbur an unsure look, like he couldn't tell if he was only making things worse by continuing to speak. "I was fuckin' drinking all the time, and it all just piled up…"

"When'd you start drinking?"

Schlatt looked both startled and uncomfortable because of Wilbur's question, but he genuinely wanted to know why the ram hybrid had spiralled into his life of alcoholism.

"Well, I was around a few other SMPs before this last one… people were fun, they liked to party n' shit. I would hang out but I never took any of their stuff. One night though, I…" Schlatt broke his eye contact, and Wilbur could barely see the light blush growing on his face. "I was thinking of you. And suddenly I was thinking about everything, and I really didn't want to. So I tried some of their shit, and it was enough of a distraction. It tasted alright and it made everything fuzzy, it was only a matter of time before I got hooked."

"So I'm the reason you became a raging alcoholic?"

"What, expect any better from me?" Schlatt remade eye contact with a playful glare, but Wilbur could see all the pain hidden behind his snide remarks. In Wilbur's eyes, Schlatt had always been the put together one, or at least, had better control over himself. The older man was finally realizing that he wasn't the only broken one in this relationship.

"I… you saw my arm. I relapsed a bit, on my _habit_. I'm not saying it's your fault, it's not, but I know what you meant when you said you needed a distraction from thinking about everything. From thinking about you."

The silence that followed Wilbur's words was tense. He was glad, of course, that they were actually talking, but it was a lot harder than their usual near-comical arguing. His thoughts were all still properly confusing, but he did know that he still cared about Schlatt a lot, and at least his feelings were reciprocated.

"...We're a fucking mess, aren't we?"

Wilbur chuckled tiredly. "Yes, yes we are."

Schlatt sighed and moved over to sit next to Wilbur, leaning up against the tree trunk. After a moment, Wilbur felt a hand brush against his own, and he allowed Schlatt to intertwine their fingers together. For once, they sat in true comfortable silence, holding hands under the dark pine trees.

Wilbur wasn't sure what they were going to do. He didn't know where he was, what his purpose was here, if he even had one at all, or why he was here with Schlatt of all people.

But right now, in this single moment, he didn't feel alone, and he was sure as hell grateful for that.

**Author's Note:**

> I was gonna make it a lot funnier by having Mexican Dream show up at the end but I think it's for the best that I scrapped that idea lmao


End file.
